Bone support
Muscle relaxation
Trigger control
Breath control
Natural Point of Aim
Follow through

I'd ditch the bi pod (for now) Judging from your tone, your confidence in your equipment and maybe yourself is shaken and you gotta get that squared away before you do anything else. If this all sounds redundant, good. It means you know it already. This is just a quick refresher.

Get a good ol ruck sack and stuff it full of something pliable (pillow?) and throw it on the ground. Get into a prone position that puts as much of your ass behind the rifle as possible. Spread the legs to a comfortable position, usually just past shoulder width. The forend should be supported by the ruck. Your left hand is balled into a fist under the back of the stock. This makes for a handy elevation adjuster. (Assuming your a righty)

Right hand is on the grip and your pulling the rifle into your shoulder slightly. Not crazy hard, just to ensure you don't eat a scope during recoil.

Obtain a firm grip. Firm is no more than what you'd use to shake a man's hand.

Acquire the target through the scope. Check for parallax. Do this by bobbing your head slightly while watching the reticle. If it moves off target, you have parallax and that needs to be fixed first. The reticle and the target need to be on the same focal plane. Not having this results in much the same of not concentrating on the front sight when shooting with irons; you don't know where the rifle is actually pointing.

Now check for natural point of aim. Sight in on the rifle at the target. Close your eyes and inhale, then exhale. Now open your eye again. If you are way out in left field you need to adjust your entire position before you continue. You keep doing this until the sights fall back on the target naturally. It may not be perfect, but it should be damn close.

Now, finger on the trigger. It's all about timing and critical mass happens when the lungs exhale and you have that natural respiratory pause, the sights pick up the hold, and the trigger finger applies pressure until the sears lets go of the firing pin. Then its just a matter of staying that way till the bullet gets out of the barrel.

If you see elevation in your shots, check to ensue your reticle is in focus. The rear ocular lens may need to be adjusted. Check this against a featureless surface. Sheet of paper on a wall works or a blank sky (don't look at the sun obviously)

There are two types of trigger control. Interrupted and uninterrupted. Interrupted is you only apply pressure to the trigger when all the above described events are happening correctly. Great in theory, but can be a bitch to learn. It's not so bad when firing from a supported position in prone.

Uninterrupted is much more aggressive. You see it, you sense it, the green light comes on, and you yank that thing just hard enough to to get the bullet out of there without screwing everything else up. Offhand competitive shooters use this often. Get some overtravel in your trigger, it'll help to avoid pulled shots that go down and right (right hand shooter, opposite for a lefty)

Even with a scope, you gotta watch "the sights". Don't focus on the target.

Hope this helps.

I've been a marksmanship instructor since 1991. I just recently graduated from the DoS BFFOC instructors course. I got into a discussion with one of the instructors over something none related, but similar one day.

He advocated shooting M-4's from prone using the magazine for artificial support. I chimed in that I felt it was a bad thing for a number of reasons. I've seen guns malfunction from this being the primary. The other is a group that suffers from elevation. The rifle rocks on the magazine because that is the polar moment, or the center of gravity. Especially with a full magazine. All that mass is down low and in the geographical center of the rifle. It becomes a fulcrum. Then it changes on you every time you pull the trigger cause the magazine gets lighter and lighter as it empties.

I think much the same may happen (sort of) with a bi pod only now your out in front with rubber feet that don't want to slide over the ground while the gun is in the recoil event. So, it binds up and you get some flyers.

This is why I suggested the ruck sack initially.

Personally, I don't care for bi pods much. They look cool, but just seem to get in the way of things.

Hope you get something helpful from this and get your problem sorted out.

Thanks for all the help guys. I'm going to start working through eveything that has been suggested. Hopefully I'll start to see some improvement soon. I think I'll give my 'smith a call a see about a Jewel trigger. I think I need to slow down my shooting also. I'm not sure what conture barrel I have, but it is not real heavy (smaller than a Sendero) and I'm thinking I may be getting it too hot. Last night my last 3 shots went about 2 inches high, still grouped well though. I checked for barrel clearance with a dollar bill, and it was clean, but the barrel was really hot, too hot to hold onto.

Thanks for all the help, I'm going to slow down and work on technique, and see if things don't improve.

He advocated shooting M-4's from prone using the magazine for artificial support. I chimed in that I felt it was a bad thing for a number of reasons. I've seen guns malfunction from this being the primary.
Chad

Ummm.... No.

Using the mag as a rest, is one the main reasons Redi-Mags are used in certain circles.